Hispanic Linguistics
Our Program
The Hispanic Linguistics Program at The Ohio State University offers one of the most distinguished and comprehensive MA and PhD programs in the nation. Ohio State is one of the largest research universities in the United States and there are many resources on our campus to support the study of Hispanic Linguistics from distinct perspectives. Specifically, OSU has nationally ranked Departments of Linguistics, Psychology, Philosophy, Speech and Hearing Sciences as well as a Center for Cognitive Sciences. Students and faculty enjoy the benefits of the 9 million volume OSU library as well as state of the art research and instructional facilities.The students in our program are international, national and local, including graduates of our own undergraduate linguistics concentration. OSU's rich academic environment offers a unique opportunity for students to receive comprehensive preparation as Hispanic Linguistics scholars and we are building a track record of placing them in the growing field of Hispanic Linguistics. We invite you to explore our Web site to learn more about what we do and to contact us if we can help you pursue interests related to ours.
Research Areas
Our faculty have many overlapping areas of research and are by no means limited to the following concentrations. However, the following descriptions give an idea of how our collaborative and individual work has developed thus far. Please refer to individual faculty web pages for further detail and links to papers.Phonetics, Phonology, Morphology
Professor MartÃnez-Gil's current projects include studies of the syllabic status of muta-cum-liquida clusters in Proto-Spanish and Western Romance, syllable merger in several contemporary Spanish dialects, including Chicano Spanish, Mexican Spanish, and Peninsular Spanish and an optimality theoretical account spirantization and the stop-spirant distribution of voiced obstruents in contemporary Spanish. Further he is currently co-editing, with Sonia Colina, Optimality-Theoretic Studies in Spanish Phonology, a forthcoming volume from John Benjamins containing 20 articles covering several major areas of phonological research within the OT framework, including segmental and prosodic structure, grammar interface (phonetics and morphology), intonation, dialectal variation, historical phonology, and phonological acquisition. Professor Morgan has recently published on the teaching of Spanish phonology. Professor Campos-Astorkiza's work focuses on the phonology-phonetics interface and follows an experimental approach to the study of phonological patterns. Her most current research analyzes the role of contrast in phonetics and phonology. Among other phenomena, she has analyzed vowel harmony in the Bable dialect of Lena as an instance of a phonological process sensitive to contrast. She is further interested in Basque phonetics and phonology.
Historical Linguistics
Professor Wanner has recently published a monograph on analogy as a force in diachrony (The Power of Analogy, 2006) and has presented papers and lectures on diachronic morphology and morphosyntax. Professor Redenbarger is working on a paper on Classical Latin Sandhi as evidenced in Latin epic poetry, and its persistence into XVth Century Portuguese. A second project involves analyzing Latin inscriptions of Roman Lusitania as evidence bearing on the evolution of Latin into Hispano-Romance Professor MartÃnez-Gil is doing a study on Old Spanish intrusive consonants and is currently working on obstruent-liquid clusters in Spanish and Western Romance. Professor Schwenter is working on subjectification in semantic/pragmatic change.
Psycholinguistics
In this area, Professor Grinstead and lab participants are engaged in a variety of projects. In Spanish-speaking children with specific language impairment, we are studying accusative clitics, nominal number marking, determiners, as well as verbal tense and agreement. In typically developing Spanish-speaking children, there are projects investigating the syntax of subject-verb inversion and the semantics and pragmatics of existential quantifiers unos-algunos. In collaboration with Laura Wagner from Psychology and Paula Rabidoux from Speech & Hearing and the Nisonger Center, we are also studying linguistic pragmatics in English-speaking children with Autism Spectrum Disorders.Syntax, Semantics
In this area, Professor Gutiérrez-Rexach doing research into the semantics of indefinites and manner operators. Professor Grinstead is working on the syntax and semantics of hasta.
Sociolinguistics, Pragmatics
In this area, Professor Schwenter has presented and published work on the pragmatics of negation in both Spanish and Portuguese. He is also doing research on cross-dialectal variation in Spanish. Professor Morgan is preparing an online catalog of dialect samples from the Spanish-speaking world.
